The final number crunching shows the Coquitlam school district had an operating surplus of $5.7 million in 2018/’19.
An audit of SD43’s finances by KPMG presented to the board of education Tuesday showed the district’s accumulated surplus had grown to $13.1 million as of June 30.
“There aren’t any surprises. We had a pretty clean audit,” said board chair Barb Hobson.
The district’s international program was a big reason for the past school year’s surplus. It brought in $35 million in revenue and turned a profit of almost $2.8 million. Other contributors to the surplus were $1.14 million in operating savings, investment income of $800,000, $500,000 leftover from the contingency budget and a profit of $450,000 on facility rentals.
District secretary-treasurer and chief financial officer Chris Nicolls said since provincial legislation prohibits districts from running a deficit it’s difficult to not get close to zero without creating a surplus.
Nicolls said it is SD43 policy to direct 25% of surplus into one-time funding for technology and deferred maintenance and the other 75% into budgets for the next three years with the pot being split between for staffing and other expenses.
“The fact the auditors have once again said that it’s a clean audit, recorded cleanly and accurately is the bottom line for us,” said Nicolls.
Salaries make up more than 90% of the district’s expenses. The financial report said $145.5 million went toward teacher salaries. That was $4.8 million more than the previous year, and $483,000 more than the district had budgeted for. That’s because there was a shortfall of $730,000 in money from the classroom enhancement fund that was supposed to be rolled over from the previous year. The shortfall, however, was offset by $171,000 in lower than expected department head allowances.
Principal and vice-principal salaries were up more than $1 million at $14.9 million, but that was $245,000 under budget.
With more than 22 full-time equivalent education assistants hired to meet enrolment demands, the cost for EAs last school year jumped by $2.1 million to $17.4 million, but that was $772,000 less than budgeted.
The district budgeted $24.5 million for support staff, including adding almost 11 positions, $2 million more than the previous school year. But vacancies and movement during the year resulted in actual spending for them being $693,000 under budget.
Substitutes cost $9.3 million, a jump of $1.2 million from the previous year and $73,000 over budget.
Although the district budgeted nearly $2.6 million for professional development and travel it only spent $1.95 million, which was $34,000 less than SD43 spent in 2017/’18.
As for the current school year (2019/’20), Nicolls said it’s too early to determine the district’s financial position.
“We’re still in the process of gathering enrolment numbers. Our general enrolment is up over last year and up over budget. We’re still working through the numbers with students with special needs. We won’t have that updated until next week,” said Nicolls.
